@Bleezy, MS saying that there's no real use for it seems right, but doesn't make it true. There's no need for it, now that is a true statement, just like there's no need for stronger hardware ... but people want it. And if it's available it is always useful to have more. Game creation is a chief field in which there's never enough resources. No matter how good you are with compression it doesn't mean that compressing/decompressing isn't an extra cost. It may be a minimal one, but it doesn't disappear. It might be offset by some other bottleneck such as transfer speed though.
However any extra plus that a game developer has can and often times is used to squeeze more. You said you can just unpack to hdd and use that... but that's where MS is in trouble: by supporting both HDD & Core versions it's forcing all developers to not rely on that, because they want to sell to all xbox360 owners.
One true thing though: as long as MS or the market forces can get a developer to go multiplatform chances are that developer isn't going to use the Bluray, because such development always uses the common denominator. However with exclusive ps3 games they can: a) include more assets b) higher resolution assets c) have more uncompressed stuff (though again, depends on where the bottleneck is) d) use the disk for a kind of swap to double the streaming speed by doing it both from disc and hdd. This is one thing that is a biggie IMO, both for developers and consumers: a consumer wanting to get a cheap 360 might think twice if he hears that on that version games dont' run so good... not to mention a developer who might get bad rep becaues. It seems in this subject also, like with HDDVD/Bluray: if it's a draw MS wins: as long as the games are multiplatform chances are engines aren't going to use this... though it is possible, I wouldn't be surprised if Carmack's Rage engine uses this hdd streaming to increase speed on the ps3 while on the xbox360 uses what I understood was higher fill rate.
There's no need for all these things as even proved by the Wii, but every little bit helps, even the bits that may not seem important like convenience of programming (xbox360), standardization of hdd (ps3), higher fill rate(?) (xbox360), bluray higher storage (ps3)...
The big deal though is content IMO. I don't care about things like if the 5/7 channels of sound in MGS4 are better uncompressed, I may not even notice that, but I do care a lot for example about the next team ICO game and Heavy Rain, and I would love more things like Mass Effect... obviously that's just me, but I do believe that this holds true in general: people care about the content, not as much the technology behind them... except when technology makes or breaks something big. For example in this new generation something HUGE imho happened: the possibility of games that stream data with no more levels surfaced... now that I believe is a rule changing experience, one that redefines everything and justifies stronger hardware.
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MS saying that there's no real use for it seems right, but doesn't make it true. There's no need for it, now that is a true statement, just like there's no need for stronger hardware ... but people want it. And if it's available it is always useful to have more. Game creation is a chief field in which there's never enough resources. No matter how good you are with compression it doesn't mean that compressing/decompressing isn't an extra cost. It may be a minimal one, but it doesn't disappear. It might be offset by some other bottleneck such as transfer speed though.
However any extra plus that a game developer has can and often times is used to squeeze more. You said you can just unpack to hdd and use that... but that's where MS is in trouble: by supporting both HDD & Core versions it's forcing all developers to not rely on that, because they want to sell to all xbox360 owners.
One true thing though: as long as MS or the market forces can get a developer to go multiplatform chances are that developer isn't going to use the Bluray, because such development always uses the common denominator. However with exclusive ps3 games they can: a) include more assets b) higher resolution assets c) have more uncompressed stuff (though again, depends on where the bottleneck is) d) use the disk for a kind of swap to double the streaming speed by doing it both from disc and hdd. This is one thing that is a biggie IMO, both for developers and consumers: a consumer wanting to get a cheap 360 might think twice if he hears that on that version games dont' run so good... not to mention a developer who might get bad rep becaues.
It seems in this subject also, like with HDDVD/Bluray: if it's a draw MS wins: as long as the games are multiplatform chances are engines aren't going to use this... though it is possible, I wouldn't be surprised if Carmack's Rage engine uses this hdd streaming to increase speed on the ps3 while on the xbox360 uses what I understood was higher fill rate.
There's no need for all these things as even proved by the Wii, but every little bit helps, even the bits that may not seem important like convenience of programming (xbox360), standardization of hdd (ps3), higher fill rate(?) (xbox360), bluray higher storage (ps3)...
The big deal though is content IMO. I don't care about things like if the 5/7 channels of sound in MGS4 are better uncompressed, I may not even notice that, but I do care a lot for example about the next team ICO game and Heavy Rain, and I would love more things like Mass Effect... obviously that's just me, but I do believe that this holds true in general: people care about the content, not as much the technology behind them... except when technology makes or breaks something big. For example in this new generation something HUGE imho happened: the possibility of games that stream data with no more levels surfaced... now that I believe is a rule changing experience, one that redefines everything and justifies stronger hardware.